Tag: Health

     The concept is very simple. You are what you eat.

     Economically speaking, this also means that you are what you consume.

    Since consumer spending makes up over 70% of our national eonomy, logic dictates that the smarter, healthier and more sustainable our purchasing is as individuals, the more sustainable and strong our national economy will become.

    The simple ripples in the water can have drastic effects, in the long run.

     So, here’s what we do.

    If Americans ate less meat, less fast food and manufactured food and instead ate more locally grown fruits and vegetables, as well as whatever food you can grow yourself, we could bring about the change we need without having to wait for anyone to take the lead.

    Simple changes to your daily diet, even if done in moderation, combined with enough people doing the same thing can literally change the world.

I travel a lot. I see preparations being made to deal with a pandemic at airports and in different ways by different governments. I asked colleagues who work in epidemiology what we were dealing with and how much I should worry. Here’s what they said:

• This flu, which they call H1N1, not Swine Flu, is what they call a novel virus, in that it is new and have never been recorded or analysed before this outbreak.
• A novel virus is unpredictable in that there is no built up immunity in populations and, therfore, it can spread quickly.
• The current H1N1 is sensitive to (can be fought with) Tamaflu and Relenza.  That’s the good news.  It is not sensitive to two other antivirals, which can be a problem if it mutates to become Tamiflu or Relenza resistant.
• The current working theory about its origin is a Smithfield Foods (American hog factory farm company) affiliate outside Mexico City.  The suspected patient zero was a boy from a nearby village where almost half were stricken earlier this year.  What is significant is that the villagers had been complaining for sometime about open hog waste ponds where ducks were present and biting insects fed.  One possibility (not proven) is that the ducks had bird flu which mingled with swine flu.  The biting insects picked up both and infected people who already had human flu, as February is Mexico’s flu season and very few people are inoculated.  
• The World Health Organization (WHO) is upping their alert level to 5.  This is significant.  6 is a full blown out of control pandemic.  This will release measures to deal with the problem across borders and means they’re concerned about countries that don’t have the measures in place that we do in the developed nations.

What you can do to protect yourself below the fold…

For crying out loud….some people just make me shake my head and be disgusted.  As many of you know, there is a potential health problem of major proportions going on in Mexico.  Now for logical folks, commonsense says stay cool and find a way to help the less fortunate.  But oh no, you got some on the Right who think “hot damn, I get to bring out the racist in me!”

more specifically, the mind stomach connection for me right now. I am continuing to notice that I am stopping eating something halfway and putting it away, or not taking seconds when I would have before, or just not snacking at all sometimes at what used to be a time of day I would feel hungry. Now there are results,too, I lost an inch off my waistline at last! Aero, however ,looks as round as ever though I am reducing her portions and treats.

Time for me and Aero to come clean. We have issues with portion control and nibbling. You can see she’s a big girl in this shot.

The vet just verified she’s my 2nd biggest pootie ever at 14 pounds ( I once had a 16 pound female-very large frame but still too heavy) As for me, the waistline isn’t budging, though the rest of me seems to be maintaining a toned look better than last winter.

As noted in previous diaries, I have a healthy diet and good exercise habits. And I still think stress promoting the fat storage is a factor. However, the clue that I really still eat more than I need came in an unexpected way.

(crossposted at the GOS)

I just got a new degree in July; it’s a mouthful, Post-baccalaureate certificate in Complementary Therapies and Healing Practices-Health Coaching track, but we were theoretically training to be “health coaches” The problem is this new profession already seems to be gelling into something different than what we were trained to do. Though I have some entrepreneurial impulses, I did not feel up to doing a business plan during election season. So I did some preliminary looking at working for someone else, and health coaching at larger companies that would hire usually involves the company identifying who is a health risk and then having the health coach cheerlead (or nag) the employee to quit smoking, lose weight or whatever  over the phone in order to save the company money. This could still benefit the employee, but it is not exactly what I was taught.

Shortly before I finished the degree, I wrote an article (below the fold) I hoped to get in a local publication. They did not use it, but it explains what felt I learned how to do. And even then I had misgivings about our title, but what would I use instead?

(crossposted at www.dailykos.com, this series started there, and a commenter suggested they might be more in sync over here)

Nothing against dogs; it’s actually admirable that they are more willing to exert themselves, though it may not be to their own benefit. Cats are more likely to stalk patiently, take things step by step, take a break when they need to, or even a long nap.



It may be my problem with meditation is not taking small enough steps; sleep is another story. For those who don’t want to go back and read my old Kos diaries, I identified stress and a shortage of sleep as factors in my belly fat hanging around ( I have the healthy diet and aerobic exercise down good), and I want to get rid of it. More below the fold.

The question becomes: Why are they refusing to release his health records?  Is the Sarah Palin pick a stealth replacement for a candidate they do not expect to fulfill his term in office?

McCain needs to release his medical records without precondition.

Until he does, it can be speculated that a vote for McCain is a vote for Palin as president.

Please sign the doctors’ request for release of records letter here:

http://therealmccain.com/doctors/

A new study by researchers at Johns Hopkins has linked low level exposure of inorganic arsenic in drinking water supplies to the risk of type 2 diabetes.  The new study indicates that environmental factors may play a role in type 2 diabetes in addition to other commonly recognized factors, such as body weight and inactivity. This is important because often our government says not to worry about particular pollutants or contaminants because the levels released into our water, soil and air are too low to be harmful to us.

Are you ready for some absolutely shocking news about sexuality and teens? Can you handle it?

Comprehensive sex education that includes discussion of birth control may help reduce teen pregnancies, while abstinence-only programs seem to fall short, the results of a U.S. survey suggest.

Abstinence was mildly effective in one instance…

The study found that teens who’d been through abstinence-only programs were less likely than those who’d received no sex ed to have been pregnant. However, the difference was not significant in statistical terms, which means the finding could have been due to chance

Just to clarify… apparently teaching teens nothing about sex is rather ineffective and telling them not to do it is only slightly more effective. Imagine that? Turns out that teens have sex!!!!! And young women who have sex and have had no or little exposure to sex education get pregnant! Could anybody have ever anticipated these results?

And further sex education does not actually force teens to go out and have sex as the right would have you believe. Apparently the right believes teens never even thought about sex until that depraved liberal teacher put the evil, nasty thoughts in their minds. Maybe the right has sex education and porn confused? If my own exposure to sex education in the middle school years is any example, I got the impression they were trying to make it as boring and clinical in order to induce teen boredom. I hope the states that actually teach it still aren’t using that approach.

In addition, there was no evidence that comprehensive sex education increased the likelihood of teen sex or boosted rates of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) — a concern of people who oppose teaching birth control in schools

In nursing we talk a lot about “evidence based clinical knowledge”, this radical concept that what we do in the clinical setting should be studied and compared in order to determine the best practical approach. The federal government on the other hand believes in promoting “myth based” knowledge.

Currently, the federal government champions the abstinence-only approach, giving around $170 million each year to states and community groups to teach kids to say no to sex. This funding precludes mention of birth control and condoms, unless it is to emphasize their failure rates